mlpfanartfandomcom-20200223-history
My Little Dashie
My Little Dashie is a fanfiction written by ROBCakeran53, with editing done by SirPeppermintJam. It is based on a picture originally created by Oppositebros. In the story, Rainbow Dash is transported to the human world and transformed into a filly, leaving her without memories of her former life. A man without much joy in his life finds her and takes care of her for fifteen years.__TOC__ Style The story is told by a first-person male narrator through a series of short vignettes. Each vignette details an important moment in the life the narrator and "Dashie" have together. Many of these vignettes are written in a diaristic style. Tense switches from past to present occasionally, sometimes within the same sentence. The changes in tense which appear random at some times, purposeful at others, suggest that a majority of the story consists of memories being relived by the narrator. Summary The story opens with the narrator complaining about the monotony in his life. He lives in what he calls a "dying city" which was once a manufacturing hub but has now fallen on hard times. His parents are dead, he has few friends, little money and no real purpose in life. The TV show is one of his few escapes from his gray and dull world. His favorite character from the show is Rainbow Dash. One day, the narrator finds a cardboard box on his way back from work. He ignores it at first, but is inexplicably drawn to go back to the alley and investigate the box later that night. Inside the box he finds a sleeping cyan Pegasus filly with a rainbow mane; she bears a resemblance to Rainbow Dash. The box contains nothing else, only a an inscription on the outside: "Give to good home." The narrator takes her home, names her "Dashie" and raises her as a daughter. Her presence brightens his life considerably, and he stops following the show. A handful of vignettes spanning several years show Dashie growing up quickly. The narrator teaches Dashie to speak, to read, to write. However, he hides her from the real world and hides all evidence of the show's existence from her, out of fear of how she would react to discovering that she's a cartoon character. The two live a happy life together and she seems well-adjusted, even learning to fly in a neglected park nearby the narrator's house. They eventually move out of the narrator's home city after, in a stroke of luck, the narrator comes into some money. He purchases a house with some land in the countryside where the two won't be bothered by too many people, and where Dashie can stay outside and in the open much longer than she could in the city. Despite the narrator's precautions, Dashie does one day find out about the show. She is initially very upset that her adoptive father hid this from her and runs away from home. Her absence causes great grief in the young narrator, who resolves to find her. After finding Dashie hiding in a nearby forest, they tearfully reconcile. A year after this incident, their fifteenth together, the two receive unexpected visitors: Princess Celestia and the remaining members of the Mane Six. Celestia reveals that Dash was transported to Earth and regressed in age as a result of a magical accident fifteen days earlier, and is surprised to hear that fifteen years have passed on Earth. Dashie doesn't remember her friends, but eventually agrees to return to Equestria, a decision the narrator reluctantly encourages. After a tearful goodbye and warm thanks from the other ponies, Twilight magically restores the Pegasus's memories. The ponies disappear, and so does any evidence that Dashie ever lived on Earth; the narrator suspects Princess Celestia altered reality to make sure there were no catastrophic consequences from shifting between the worlds. The narrator still has his memories, however, and one other item has remained unchanged: a photo album with pictures of Dashie and a note written by her, thanking him profusely for raising her and that she loves him dearly. Shifting back into the present tense after the longest stretch of consistent past tense narration in the story, the narrator flips through the album. He reflects on the past one-and-a-half decade and determines that, even if Dashie is gone, she has still left a positive impact in his life. After looking at the empty pages in the back of the album, he resolves to live his life to the fullest for his own sake and the memory of his "little Dashie". Role of Friendship is Magic is mentioned a couple of times in the story, at first as a source of escapism for the narrator, who describes himself as "a closet brony". He wishes he had a Rainbow Dash of his own even before she falls in his lap. The day he finds the filly is September 17, 2011, the date of the second season premiere The Return of Harmony Part 1. Four years later on the same date, Dashie performs a sonic rainboom and receives her cutie mark. The spell Twilight uses to restore Rainbow's memories to her is the same one she uses in The Return of Harmony Part 2. Despite being kept ignorant of the show, Dashie develops much the same personality as her animated counterpart; instead of being a fan of the Wonderbolts, Dashie becomes an enthusiast of auto racing. The narrator himself stops watching the show after he finds Dashie, partly because he now has his very own Little Pony, and partly because he does not want to have to explain to Dashie that she is a character from a television cartoon. For the same reasons, he stops using the internet and does not allow Dashie to go online or outside without supervision. When she encounters the show anyway, it is because the narrator has become careless; a new cable package includes The Hub, and Dashie happens to tune in during a rerun of the episode Sonic Rainboom. Because large parts of the story take place in the future relative to the story's publication in 2011, it predicts Friendship is Magic's fortunes. According to the narrator the show ends up running for eight seasons before getting cancelled. The connection between the fictional show and the "real" ponies remains unexplained, though Celestia appears to be aware of Earth, and appears not to have a particularly high opinion of humans. Reception Reception for My Little Dashie has been overwhelmingly positive. "My Little Dashie" is the most viewed fanfic on FIMFiction, and its rating on the site has a positive to negative ratio of 96.5%. It is labeled "Star 6" on Equestria Daily, meaning that it has received an overall rating of at least 4.9/5 across 1,669 votes (as of April 5, 2012). Derivative works Multiple alternate endings, sequels, side stories that take place during the fifteen years, fan art pictures and musical compositions inspired by or based on "My Little Dashie" have been created. Some can be found in a folder on the original author's deviantART favorites page or Equestria Daily's page for the story (links below). Early versions of a Pokémon-style fighting game based on the story have been released since January 2012. Several fan film adaptation trailers had been announced. One specifically was made by an English YouTube user Jenomorph that he uploaded on April 22, 2012. He planned the movie to be a full hour long and had a completed script and even made a website dedicated to the movie. He announced that the movie would be released in fall 2012 but then had to change it due to difficulties. As of August 4, 2012 the final draft of the script was near completion, and voice actors were found for Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle, as well as filly and adult versions of Rainbow Dash. He made a video in early 2013 apologizing about the delay of the movie and lack of updates on it, he tells the viewers that he believed with the programs and film equipment he had and hiring a few actors would simply be all he needed to get the film done but was ultimately wrong, in the video he asks his viewers that if they have free time as well as filming experience to come to his location and help him with the project as he believes he won't get him done with his small amount of crew and stress of college, at the end of the video he shows a clip of the movie he was working on with the main character and Rainbow Dash (doesn't actually appear as the scene effect wasn't completed) opening a Christmas present and having Dash put on the star to the Christmas tree. On February 23, 2014 he closed down the website and announced in trailers description that the movie has been cancelled, he confesses that when he uploaded the trailer that he did not have everything exactly planned out and it led to high stress especially since his crew had to go their separate ways due to full time jobs, moving out of the country, and preparing for college final exams. Jenomorph also claims that he does not have the money to hire anybody else to help him with the project and does not want to risk making a kickstarter on getting the money for him as he is unsure completely if he'll manage get the film entirely done even with the crew. The movie is cancelled however he is keeping the storyboards, scripts, research and overall progress on the films development for future inspiration so he can learn from his mistakes and will not release it public due to the fear of other people taking his plan for themselves. A song by Aviators alters the lyrics of a previously-released song of his to match the story. Specifically, the lyrics appear to reflect the narrator's emotions after Dashie has learned of the show's existence and left her home in tears. The 8th episode of Rainbow Dash Presents is about My Little Dashie. A 27-minute long film adaptation of My Little Dashie was produced by StormXF3, best known for his "MLP in real life" series of videos. A notorious FanFiction novel series, titled The Titan's Orb, considers the My Little Dashie story as a genuine event, depicting Alex Griffin (ROBCakeran53's real name) himself as Rainbow Dash's adoptive father; whom wrote the story as a secret autobiography. As the story features the Mane Six returning to Earth, a subplot story arc focuses on Dashie's memories of Alex returning, and her wishing to find him again. External links *Interview with the author *Derivative works collected by the author *v1.4 alpha of the My Little Dashie game *Comic by WaltzBrony References Category:Fan fiction